A good day to all,

Today’s mortgage rates are still very favorable.

I would like to discuss a much under-utilized mortgage product, Fannie Mae’s HomePath Mortgage.  This program is a great alternative to FHA.  Any occupancy status is allowed with minimum down payments ranging from as little as 3% for a primary residence, 10% down for a second home, and 15% down for an investment property.  No appraisal is required. There is no Monthly or Upfront Mortgage Insurance.  And, condos can be approved with little scrutiny.

The subject property has to be listed as a Fannie Mae HomePath eligible property. Currently there are 12 HomePath properties listed in South Lake Tahoe, 2 in Alpine county, 33 in Douglas county, 31 in Carson City, and 306 in Washoe county.  Just go to www.homepath.com to search for eligible properties.  And call your local mortgage broker for more details.  Not all banks are participating in this program.

Check out today’s video at Think Big Work Small to find out which states have the longest foreclosure process:  http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/56986/

Do you deserve full disclosure?

The two largest differences between going directly to the bank or using the services of a broker are:

Brokers fully disclose every penny earned . . . Bank employees . . . NOT!!

Brokers are required to take the new national and state level tests . . . Bank employees . . NOT!!

It does not cost your borrower any more to use a broker.  If fact, many times it will cost them less.

Support your local mortgage broker!!

Susan Reynolds-

Alpine Lending Group

VOX 775-200-0605 Follows me everywhere

FAX 775-847-7375

sreynoldsbroker@att.net

NV Mortgage Broker License #3079

NV Mortgage Agent License #46738

CA Broker License #00860550

NMLS #248311

21320 Delta Drive – Reno –  NV –  89521

NMLS #338361

3330 Lake Tahoe Blvd #13 – South Lake Tahoe – CA – 96150

NMLS #339207

Hello Real Estate Pros,

Never a dull moment in our industry.  Look at the rates above.  Under 4.5% almost across the board.  Holy moly.

I have such a weakness for the underdog.  The article below sheds some light on how this foreclosure freeze got started.  Pretty interesting stuff.  Click onto www.thinkbigworksmall.com for some more enlightening video.  Today’s link is below.

From a Maine House, a National Foreclosure Freeze

by David Streitfeld
Friday, October 15, 2010

provided by

DENMARK, Me. — The house that set off the national furor over faulty foreclosures is blue-gray and weathered. The porch is piled with furniture and knickknacks awaiting the next yard sale. In the driveway is a busted pickup truck. No one who lives there is going anywhere anytime soon.

Nicolle Bradbury bought this house seven years ago for $75,000, a major step up from the trailer she had been living in with her family. But she lost her job and the $474 monthly mortgage payment became difficult, then impossible.

It should have been a routine foreclosure, with Mrs. Bradbury joining the anonymous millions quietly dispossessed since the recession began. But she was savvy enough to contact a nonprofit group, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where for once in her 38 years, she caught a break.

Her file was pulled, more or less at random, by Thomas A. Cox, a retired lawyer who volunteers at Pine Tree. He happened to know something about foreclosures because when he worked for a bank he did them all the time. Twenty years later, he had switched sides and, he says, was trying to make amends.

Suddenly, there is a frenzy over foreclosures. Every attorney general in the country is participating in an investigation into the flawed paperwork and questionable methods behind many of them. A Senate hearing is scheduled, and federal inquiries have begun. The housing market, which runs on foreclosure sales, is in turmoil. Bank stocks fell on Thursday as analysts tried to gauge the impact on lenders’ bottom lines.

All of this is largely because Mr. Cox realized almost immediately that Mrs. Bradbury’s foreclosure file did not look right. The documents from the lender, GMAC Mortgage, were approved by an employee whose title was “limited signing officer,” an indication to the lawyer that his knowledge of the case was effectively nonexistent.

Mr. Cox eventually won the right to depose the employee, who casually acknowledged that he had prepared 400 foreclosures a day for GMAC and that contrary to his sworn statements, they had not been reviewed by him or anyone else.

GMAC, the country’s fourth-largest mortgage lender, called this omission a technicality but was forced last month to halt foreclosures in the 23 states, including Maine, where they must be approved by a court. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and other lenders that used robo-signers — the term caught on instantly — have enacted their own freezes.

The tragedy of foreclosure is that some homeowners may be able to stay where they are if their lenders are more interested in modification than eviction. Without a job, Mrs. Bradbury is not one of them. Her family, including her 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, lives on welfare and food stamps.

“A lot of people say we just want a free ride,” Mrs. Bradbury said. “That’s not it. I’ve worked since I was 14. I’m not lazy. I’m just trying to keep us together. If we lost the house, my family would have to break up.”

It has been two years since she last paid the mortgage, which surprises even her lawyers.

“Had GMAC followed the legal requirements, she would have lost her home a long time ago,” acknowledged Geoffrey S. Lewis, another lawyer handling her case.

GMAC, which began as the financing arm of General Motors, has received $17 billion from taxpayers in an effort to keep it from failing and is now majority-owned by the federal government. A spokeswoman for the lender declined to comment on Mrs. Bradbury’s case because it was still being litigated.

John J. Aromando of the firm of Pierce Atwood in Portland, Me., the lawyer for GMAC and Fannie Mae, the mortgage holding company that owns Mrs. Bradbury’s loan, did not return calls for comment on Thursday.

Fannie Mae and GMAC, which serviced the loan for Fannie, have now most likely spent more to dislodge Mrs. Bradbury than her house is worth. Yet for all their efforts, they are not only losing this case, but also potentially laying the groundwork for foreclosure challenges nationwide.

“This ammunition will be front and center in thousands of foreclosure cases,” said Don Saunders of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

Just a few miles from the New Hampshire border, this slice of Maine does not have much in the way of industry or, for that matter, people. Mrs. Bradbury grew up around here, married and had her children here, and married for a second time here. Her parents still live nearby.

In 2003, her brother-in-law at the time offered to sell her a house on property adjacent to his. It was across from a noisy construction supply site. But it was ringed by maple, evergreen and willow trees, and who does not want to be a homeowner, especially when GMAC Mortgage will give you a loan for the entire purchase price and then another loan to improve the property?

“I was very happy,” she remembered. “It was a new beginning.”

But Mrs. Bradbury lost her job as an employment counselor in 2006 and did part-time work after that. Her husband, Scott, was in poor health and had other problems. He could not work as a roofer. She fell behind and got a modification from GMAC. It increased her monthly payments and provided no relief.

Finally, in late 2008, she stopped paying altogether, and GMAC asked a court to approve her eviction without a trial. By the summer of 2009, this removal was well under way when Mr. Cox picked up her file.

Mr. Cox, 66, worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s for Maine National Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of New England, which went under. His job was to call in small-business loans. The borrowers had often pledged their houses as collateral, which meant foreclosure.

“It was extraordinarily unpleasant, but it paid well,” he said. “I had a family to support.”

The work exacted its cost: his marriage ended and a serious depression began. He gave up law and found solace in building houses. By April 2008, he said, he was sufficiently recovered and started volunteering at Pine Tree Legal.

By the time Mr. Cox saw Mrs. Bradbury’s case, it was just about over. Last January, Judge Keith A. Powers of the Ninth District Court of Maine approved the foreclosure, leaving the case alive only to establish exactly how much Mrs. Bradbury owed.

Mr. Cox vowed to a colleague that he would expose GMAC’s process and its limited signing officer, Jeffrey Stephan. A lawyer in another foreclosure case had already deposed Mr. Stephan, but Mr. Cox wanted to take the questioning much further. In June, he got his chance. A few weeks later, he spelled out in a court filing what he had learned from the robo-signer:

“When Stephan says in an affidavit that he has personal knowledge of the facts stated in his affidavits, he doesn’t. When he says that he has custody and control of the loan documents, he doesn’t. When he says that he is attaching ‘a true and accurate’ copy of a note or a mortgage, he has no idea if that is so, because he does not look at the exhibits. When he makes any other statement of fact, he has no idea if it is true. When the notary says that Stephan appeared before him or her, he didn’t.”

GMAC’s reaction to the deposition was to hire two new law firms, including Mr. Aromando’s firm, among the most prominent in the state. They argued that what Mrs. Bradbury and her lawyers were doing was simply a “dodge”: she had not paid her mortgage and should be evicted.

They also said that Mr. Cox, despite working pro bono, had taken the deposition “to prejudice and influence the public” against GMAC for his own commercial benefit. They asked that the transcript be deleted from any blog that had posted it and that it be put under court seal.

In a ruling late last month, Judge Powers said that GMAC, despite its expensive legal talent and the fact that it got “a second bite of the apple” by filing amended foreclosure papers, still could not get this eviction right.

Even the amended documents did not bother to include the actual street address of the property it was trying to seize, reason enough, the judge wrote, to reject the request for immediate foreclosure without a trial.

But Judge Powers went further than that, saying that GMAC had been admonished in a Florida court for using robo-signers four years ago but had persisted. “It is well past the time for such practices to end,” he wrote, adding that GMAC had acted “in bad faith” by submitting Mr. Stephan’s material:

“Filing such a document without significant regard for its accuracy, which the court in ordinary circumstances may never be able to investigate or otherwise verify, is a serious and troubling matter.”

It was not a complete loss for GMAC — Judge Powers declined to find the lender in contempt — but nearly so. GMAC was ordered, as a penalty, to pay Mr. Cox personally what he would have been paid for his work on the deposition and related matters had he been charging Mrs. Bradbury. That, he says, is $27,000.

The court’s ruling on GMAC’s “bad faith” is already being taken up by foreclosure defense lawyers around the country. Mr. Cox “did a remarkable job of proving the lenders not only rubber-stamped these loans on the front end, but they rubber-stamped them on the back end,” said Mr. Saunders of the legal aid group.

GMAC, which this week expanded its foreclosure freeze to the entire country, is not giving up on Mrs. Bradbury. It will try for the third time to evict her when the case goes to trial this winter.

If Mrs. Bradbury is not quite victorious, she is still in her house, and for her that is the only thing that counts. If she can get her pickup fixed, she will go back to looking for a job.

“I am not leaving,” she said this week, standing out on her front lawn, the autumn splendor spread all around her. “We have nowhere to go.”

Please go to today’s Think Big Work Small video link:  http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/54153/

Do you deserve full disclosure?

The two largest differences between going directly to the bank or using the services of a broker are:

Brokers fully disclose every penny earned . . . Bank employees . . . NOT!!

Brokers are required to take the new national and state level tests . . . Bank employees . . NOT!!

It does not cost your borrower any more to use a broker.  If fact, many times it will cost them less.

Support your local mortgage broker!!

Good Day Realtors,

Whew!!!  What a week so far.  Foreclosure halts across the nation.  Lawsuits filed by 49 of 50 AGs against mortgage loan servicers.  The lowest rates ever!

Foreclosure Halt Could Boost Home Prices: Economist

CNBC

On Thursday October 14, 2010, 11:23 am EDT

A halt to foreclosures could be a boost to home prices in the near term, Carl Riccadonna, US senior economist at Deutsche Bank, told CNBC Thursday.

“The moratorium will help the situation,” said Riccadonna, who issued a note to investors on housing. But he cautioned that long-term a moratorium could result in a “tidal wave of inventory” that would force prices down again.

“Housing is in such a fragile state right now, so that foreclosure and distressed sales account for about a third of the volume of transactions. If we shut that off, we could actually see the volume of transactions fall to a new low-the lowest since the ’90-’91 recession,” he added.

“While that will help us work through the existing inventory that’s out there, once those foreclosure properties come back on the market, once the situation has been resolved, that could lead to a tidal wave of inventory that could cause prices to re-weaken.”

Officials in 50 states and Washington DC launched a joint investigation Wednesday into allegations that mortgage companies mishandled documents and broke laws in foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homeowners. Employees at four large lenders have admitted in depositions that they signed off on foreclosure documents they hadn’t read.

Please go to today’s Think Big Work Small video link:  http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/53970/

Do you deserve full disclosure?

Hello all,

Please go to today’s Think Big Work Small video link: http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/53809

It reiterates everything I have been saying in a nutshell. The folks at the NV Mortgage Lending Division in Carson City have even realized what is going to happen if we can’t stop the runaway train. They will be out of jobs because there won’t be any of us left to oversee.

Home loans for purchases rise 9.3 percent
Mortgage applications to purchase homes rise 9.3 percent, overall applications down slightly

On Wednesday October 6, 2010, 9:39 am EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Applications for mortgages to buy homes rose last week to the highest level since May, while overall applications were down slightly.

The Mortgage Bankers Association says overall applications fell 0.2 percent from a week earlier, driven by a 2.5 percent decline in applications to refinance home loans. Those taken out to purchase homes, however, rose 9.3 percent to the highest level since early May.

Rates have been at or near the lowest level in decades since spring as investors have shifted money into safer Treasury bonds. That has lowered their yields, which mortgage rates tend to track. However the weak economy has kept demand for homes dormant.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan dipped to 4.25 percent from 4.38 percent a week earlier.

Big banks make the big bucks:

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/53809/

Do you deserve full disclosure?

The two largest differences between going directly to the bank or using the services of a broker are:

Brokers fully disclose every penny earned . . . Bank employees . . . NOT!!

Brokers are required to take the new national and state level tests . . . Bank employees . . NOT!!

It does not cost your borrower any more to use a broker. If fact, many times it will cost them less.

Support your local mortgage broker!!

Good Day Realtors,

Welcome to the first day of fall. These mortgage rates just hold in there. I still remember when single digit rates were something to get excited about.

Note the 5 year intermediate ARM rate, 3.375%. If you have a 7-9 year old 15 year loan, this would be the opportunity to switch it to a 5 or 7 year intermediate ARM and pay off the rest of your balance quickly and save $$ on the interest. Let’s put a pencil to that one!

NV Mortgage Reno, Good Day!!

Hello Real Estate Pros,

This is crazy!!  The rates continue to fall and yet the market does not seem to improve much.  It’s time to kick this market into high gear and it’s up to us, the Real Estate pros.  Start going through those old “dead” contact lists and turn them into live buyers.  FHA is making it relatively easy these days for both buyers and sellers, so there are no more excuses.  Even “High Balance FHA” is priced very attractively.

Simple math, simple technique, to “manufacture” buyers:

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/52949/

Do you deserve full disclosure?

The two largest differences between going directly to the bank or using the services of a broker are:

Brokers fully disclose every penny earned . . . Bank employees . . . NOT!!

Brokers are required to take the new national and state level tests . . . Bank employees . . NOT!!

It does not cost your borrower any more to use a broker.  If fact, many times it will cost them less.

Support your local mortgage broker!!

Good day Realtors,

This week the rates inched down another millimeter.  Again, if you have buyers on the fence waiting for the bottom of the market, it’s time to push them off the fence.  The dollars they save monthly may now offset the possible few they may save in price if they wait much longer.

Upfront mortgage insurance and monthly mortgage insurance rates required by FHA are changing very very soon.  If you have a possible FHA transaction, it would be ever-so-wise to compare today’s MI structure with the impending structure.  Seller paid upfront MI will save your borrower lots of $$s now, upfront, and on a monthly basis.  So, again, push them off the fence!!!

Closing costs for borrowers has increased 37%.  Why?  Watch the video linked below:

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/52826

Do you deserve full disclosure?

The two largest differences between going directly to the bank or using the services of a broker are:

Brokers fully disclose every penny earned . . . Bank employees . . . NOT!!

Brokers are required to take the new national and state level tests . . . Bank employees . . NOT!!

It does not cost your borrower any more to use a broker.  If fact, many times it will cost them less.

Support your local mortgage broker!!

A great summer day to all,

The rates continue to break 50 year records.  Check out the items highlighted in pink, which illustrate some incredible pricing.

By now, you are all aware that the tax credit has been extended thanks to the efforts of the strong lobbying of Realtors across the nation.  It’s great to see your dues at work!!!

Today’s video at “Think Big Work Small” is too good to pass up.  Loans for Tahoe Verde on the horizon??  Check it out at:

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/51611

NV Mortgage Reno News

Happy July 1 all,

Finally summer has kicked in, and just in time for the big holiday weekend!!!

The rates are about the same as last week, which are record breaking lows.

Click on to http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/archive/1/514568 .  Today’s commentary is right on and down right funny!!

Nv Mortgage Reno News

Hello Real Estate Pros,

In the quest to scoop up all the “deals” in REOs and short sales, some purchasers are buying multiple properties, securing loans on them, and not disclosing any simultaneous or near-simultaneous transactions to their lenders.  It can take up to 60 days for a new debt to be reported on a credit report.

Fannie Mae came out with some new guidelines (LQI: Loan Quality Initiative) that may be of interest to all.  Beginning with new applications taken after June 1^st, Fannie Mae now requires lenders to pull credit right before funding.

If there is any new debt, delinquency, or change in credit score, that tidbit may impact the loan approval, and/or the rate and pricing.  Talk about an 11^th hour snafu!!!

Not only that, if the borrower did not disclose any new debt or delinquency that they were aware of, they may be charged with FRAUD, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.  Please counsel your purchasers not to alter their credit profile during their loan period.

Click on to http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com for some interesting commentary.

Do you deserve full disclosure?

Support your local mortgage broker!!